Besides the way how you design products your whole business should become eco-effective. What are the easy steps to take? And what can be done with a little more effort? Today I will show you some examples in the Netherlands, because one of the things you can do is to stimulate the local economy.

Tips & Tricks

Paper

Which paper do you use? FSC-forest paper, or recycled paper? Or maybe you have a paperless office and work mostly on digital devices?

Website

Which host for your website do you have? How do they store your data? Which energy do they use?

Office supplies

What kind of pens, stickers, envelops etc. do you use? For example, I use Rexel Cradle-to-cradle document boxes: non-toxic, recyclable and with the benefit that they do not have an elastic band which easily looses it strenght. You could take a look at www.groenekantoorartikelen.nl

Energy

What kind of energy provider do you have? A good example is Greenchoice http://besparen.greenchoice.nl/nl/home or maybe you even taken it a step further and have your own system to harvest energy from the sun?

Food & Drinks

What kind of coffee, tea and lunches do you order? Are they fairtrade and/or organic?

Recently we have moved from Zeist to Maarssen where I had the great opportunity to take my office an eco-step further.

I reused a lot of my old furniture in the new office because it still works perfectly. To heat up the office I now use the eHeater from Econoheat, it saves energy because it uses a convection technology. The panel heats the air between the wall and the panel, and cold air is sucked from underneath the panel, hot air raises and you get a natural airflow. And it is also nicely designed!

DESSO AirMaster filters eight times more harmful fine particles out of the air then a normal carpet. The company works with Cradle-to-cradle and set up a roadmap (see above) of which they are ahead because things are going so well! By 2020 their materials must be 100% free of toxic chemicals. DESSO uses Econyl yarn from Aquafil, a Polyamide 6 from used carpets that is recycled over and over again. They have set up a system to take back old carpet tiles (also from other companies, but always without PVC) shredder them and reuse the materials into new tiles. Renewable energy (sun, water and biomass) is used and by 2020 they want to be switched to fully using renewable energy. They use their water management responsible and also work socially responsible.

Next to knowing the company is doing the right thing I especially like AirMaster, because I have been allergic for dust mite all my life. I have tried a lot, we have had normal carpet, linoleum, laminate but the dust came back so quickly. The allergy is under control already for some years now because of medicines, but wouldn't it be great if I could stop these toxic medicines from going through my body because of the use of DESSO AirMaster carpet in combination with good air ventilation?

Can you give more tips on what you will do to make your office eco-effective?Let me know in the comments below or by e-mail!